CEO Brad Wenzel said: "We've been working in the field a long time and we've put about six years into building this system."

The kit scales to 35TB - which is a lot of iTunes and noodly GarageBand remixes - and runs the firm's Java-based GUI. Storage Elements will be pitching it at education organisations, which often have Mac setups. The OS X-based solution will handle data from Windows and Linux/UNIX parts of the network too.

Wenzel said: "For school districts, this would be ideal because it's Mac-operated and can reach out to form a network of hundreds of other platforms. It provisions easily and can back up a large mixed storage array."

The servers start at $20,000 and are available through Storage Element's reseller network.